#MidWeekTease where Secrets never stayed buried for long...

Woot it's Wednesday and #MidWeekTease time

today I'll say...

Secrets never stay buried for long…

Reluctant heiress Lady Morven Weston is tired of her mother interfering in her love affairs. At twenty-six there’s only so many more society balls she can attend before resigning herself to life as an unmarried maid.

But when Lord Fraser Napier, the man Morven ran wild with one long, hot summer, returns to Scotland, his shocking revelations change everything. Fraser never annulled their whirlwind marriage all those years ago!

Preparing to take up his ancestral seat, Fraser’s not letting go of his secret bride that easily – he needs an heir. It’s only a matter of time before Morven surrenders to Fraser’s seductive touch and finds herself in his bed…

(no cover yet)

A shriek like a banshee sounded from beyond the garden wall, and Morven whirled around from contemplating the metal door fastening to stare outside. Three crows and some sort of bird of prey flew overhead arguing. A robin sat on a branch and observed her with interest and chirruped its annoyance. That had been the noise then. Convention or not, Murren would have hated it here. She readily admitted that she preferred the noise of pie sellers to magpies, and the known to the unknown.

The next scream sounded as if something was trying to enter the room via the chimney.

‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Morven said out loud, somewhat disgusted at her pathetic attitude. ‘Get a backbone. This is an old building. It creaks and talks to the world. Stop it. Selkies, kelpies and Ghillie Dhu do not exist…’ she broke off and bit her lips, before she swallowed heavily… ‘around here,’ she finished defiantly, and then groaned at the knowledge she was talking to herself out loud. Next I will be seeing those wee creatures, if I’m not careful.  She picked up a cushion from the chaise and plumped it up for no reason.

Either the same door or one nearby slammed again and she could swear she heard footsteps. Morven dropped the cushion as if it was on fire and looked around for something—anything—she could use as a weapon to defend herself, then laughed, shame faced It was probably a servant, and Fraser wouldn’t take to kindly at one of his staff being attacked with a Sevres vase, the only likely weapon she could see.

Now she wished she’d asked who used the top four floors.

However it didn’t really matter, she had a lock on her door, on all doors in fact and the idea of having somewhere private to slip away to was an un-thought of joy. Morven decided she might frequently develop a headache if it meant she could retreat here and enjoy such gorgeous surroundings. More and more she had began to appreciate her own company. The chance to speak or not, to enjoy the world around her without interference or banalities was her idea of perfection. Morven chuckled as she stepped into the garden. All she needed now was a cat or two and to start wearing lacy caps and she would be written off by all and sundry as an eccentric and on the shelf. It was almost enough to have her go on a hunt for several felines and a seamstress to make said caps. The idiotic scenario—as if she’d be allowed to do any such things at five and twenty—cheered her up and she thought this sojourn in Scotland could work and be enjoyable. After all she’d loved her previous visit. All of it.

Good lord, how pathetic. The only fly in the ointment was she had yet to meet Fraser again and it would no doubt be when they gathered for dinner. It would have been so much better if this first initial meeting after almost eight years could have been private. She had rather a lot to say to him and she wasn’t sure it was all going to be pleasant.

 Morven knew she had agreed they indulge in a summer fling and nothing more would come of it, and enjoyed every second of it. At eighteen, away from her family and with such an attentive escort what was there not to love?

Now though? Not to be warned he would be at the castle when they were went beyond all comprehension. Had it got something to do with her mama’s uncommunicative behaviour on the journey north? And Murren’s worries? Well of course it had, and there was precious little she could do about that, except when she once again met Fraser, be courteous, serene and polite and treat him as if they had been mere acquaintances.

However she had to get over the meeting first. Project a persona that was cool calm and collected and see if he was privy or agreed with this stupid idea of their mamas. Lord he would eat her gentle sister for breakfast and spit her out in little bits without even thinking about it.

 That could not be allowed. And how will I stop him? Seduce him? As if that would work, he is a man. Why stop at one if you can have two. Morven accepted she was not being fair. When has Fraser ever showed he would behave in that manner? She’d seen enough of him during that summer all those years ago, to understand that was not his way. He had honour and a sense of right that she’d seen missing in many a man.

Dare she appeal to his better nature? Could she? Would she be honest and tell him she’d never forgotten those golden months? That even though she accepted their hand fasting and vows were private and meant nothing to anyone else, they meant a lot to her? Would he agree he had felt the same? Morven shook her head at her idiotic thoughts. Why would he, she knew he hadn’t his subsequent actions told her that. Perhaps he would laugh at her childishness? However there was a chancehe wouldn’t.

What should she do?

It was a conundrum she had no answer to. Morven wandered across the manicured lawn of her garden and bent her head to smell the rose that rambled up the castle wall.

‘Such a pretty sight.’

****

‘Argh….’ Three floors below his vantage point, Morven, at least he thought it was she, spun around so fast she lost her footing, and grabbed onto a grinning stone Adonis to save herself from falling.

 Fraser chuckled. Did she know which part of the statue’s anatomy she now held in a death grip?

I could get used to that again.

‘Careful he might get flustered…or something,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Lucky thing.’

She looked around, as if to try and figure out who spoke, and Fraser’s cock hardened to the point of pain, and his skin became taut and prickly as he realised it was indeed Morven. A beautiful more mature Morven, who had grown into her skin and her loveliness.

‘Wait there,’ he called abruptly as she looked upwards and her expression changed from puzzled to 

annoyed. ‘Please,’ he added. ‘I won’t be a second.’ 

Catch all the other #MidWeekTease excerpts ~here!

The Scottish Lord's Secret Bride is up for preorder on Amazon and Kobo and soom on Are

happy reading 

love R x